Our Mission
We invite artists of any race, gender, age, sexual orientation, ability, and religious affiliation to take part in our mission to embody our core values: flexibility, generosity, humility, curiosity, and care. We're committed to providing underrepresented artists a radically generous place to create art and nourish one another through shared meals, shared dialogue, and shared inquiry. To honor our commitment to interrupting and destabilizing oppression in our own community, we offer training opportunities for collective learning around power, privilege, and oppression.
Queen Bees
Alyssa Vera Ramos
Alyssa is a theatre artist and educator in Chicago with an emphasis on social practice and participatory engagement. Alyssa is a member of For Youth Inquiry (FYI) Performance Cadre and WOC artist collective FEMelanin. She is also a DCASE and 3Arts grant recipient for The Scarlet S Project presents: I AM THE RAT, which she developed and directed. Current projects-in-development include EPIC TALES FROM THE LAND OF MELANIN, an experiential TYA play centering revolutionary young girls of color (with FEMelanin), and LA OPERACIÓN, about the forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women (with her novelist mother Marisel Vera).
Lily Be
Lily Be is the longtime host and producer of The Stoop a live off-book storytelling show on Chicago's West Side.
Lily Be is a lifelong Chicagoan and supporter of the community and the arts. Her foray into performing was completely by accident and she continues to create and do work in efforts of finding other people like her who may not have access to or resources to classes/workshops/storytelling shows to discover their voice or standing in their truths. She does a lot more than a bio intro will ever do her justice, so catch everything she has going on at LilyBe.com
Nik Zaleski
Nik Zaleski (she/they) is a humble student of miracles and breakthrough architect. She guides individuals, audiences, and organizations toward revelations that change their work and life. Sometimes this looks like supporting social justice organizations in making discoveries about their impact through her organizational development company, Murmur. Sometimes it looks like writing and directing plays that help audiences feel new feelings through the theater she makes. Sometimes it looks like helping individuals and couples experience a deeper connection to themselves and to each other through her intimate somatics coaching (hell yes, that includes deeper and more life-expanding orgasms). When she’s not doing all that other stuff, Nik makes mead, tinctures, and other remedies from her garden that grows year-round and totally believes in magic.
Jacob Watson designs and facilitates experiences that move people into deeper understanding of themselves and their communities. He is a theatre director/producer and an educator who uses creative, embodied strategies to foster expansive thinking, dialogue, and growth. Jacob has been a researcher at Project Zero and a program manager for interdisciplinary learning initiatives at Columbia College Chicago. He has been a teaching artist in public schools and led workshops for faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students at universities. Jacob is a founding member of the FYI Performance Company at the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, which creates participatory theatre experiences that activate the creative potential of sexuality education. He is also an organizer for Swarm Artist Residency. Jacob has created performances for Lyric Opera of Chicago, Redmoon, Theatre Unspeakable, FYI, Piven Theatre Workshop, Chicago Home Theatre Festival, and Erasing the Distance. Currently, he is collaborating with Tellin' Tales Theatre to develop Transplant, a new musical that seeks to redefine public perception of disability. His writing can be found online at Education Week and Medium.com. Jacob holds an Ed.M. in Arts in Education from Harvard University and a B.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University.
Chinyere "Chi" Achebe
Chinyere is a certified Reiki Practitioner who channels Divine Inner-G for the purpose of healing through art, touch, intuitive readings, music, play, envisioning and movement by accessing all of the resources of this ABUNDANT UNIVERSE.
Freddie Ramos
Freddie is a writer, educator, and facilitator of play. They work towards a world where everyone has room to heal and embody their joy. They are currently writing a graphic novel about decolonization, transformative justice, and the ocean.
Danielle Littman
Danielle Maude Littman (she/her) is a writer, facilitator, and community-engaged scholar who dreams of creating places of belonging, affirmation, and safety, especially for folks who've been denied access to these feelings for far too long. Her artistic practice spans across the realms of participatory process-holding, nonfiction writing, playwriting, and mixed media visual art. She has worked in K-12 education, community arts programming, and clinical social work practice, and is presently a PhD candidate in Social Work at the University of Denver. She holds her master's degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago and her BA in Theatre and Creative Nonfiction Writing from Northwestern University.
Former Queen hall of fame
Founders
Swarm is the brainchild of Zoe Swartz, and was founded by Zoe, Morgan McNaught, Lee Stark, and Nik Zaleski.